Susan Nelles: The Defence of Innocence

• Author: Austin Cooper
• Pages: 27-42

Susan

Nelles:

The

Defence

of

Innocence

AUSTIN

COOPER,

QC

1990

Between January

11 and

March

22,

1981, four infants

who

were

patients

in

the

cardiac ward

at the

Hospital

for

Sick

Children

in

Toronto died

as a

result

of

the

deliberate administration

of

overdoses

of a

heart drug called Digoxin.

Although,

at the

outset, there

was

some speculation that "mercy

killing"

was

the

reason

for the

deaths,

it

soon became clear that there

was no

motive

for

the

killings.

In

fact,

some

of the

babies could have recovered

from

their ill-

nesses

and led

reasonably normal lives.

The

usual reasons

for one

person killing another, such

as

matrimonial

discord,

jealousy, revenge, self-defence, drunkenness,

or

provocation,

were

all

irrelevant.

There

was no

apparent motive. Accordingly, these crimes were

strange indeed, and,

as the

lawyer retained

to

defend

the

person charged,

it

appeared plain that

the

killer

who

snuffed

out the

lives

of the

babies

had to be

a

strange person.

Any

normal, right-thinking, healthy person would

not

extin-

guish

the

lives

of

four

helpless

infants

in

their cribs

for no

apparent reason.

It

was

therefore with some curiosity that

I

anticipated

the

first

meeting with

my

client,

Susan Nelles,

at the

Metro West Detention Centre

in

March 1981.

What sort

of

creature would

I

see?

The

first

thing that struck

me on

that

cold Sunday afternoon

in the

little room assigned

for

lawyers

to

meet their

clients

was how

small

she

was.

She

appeared barely

five

feet

tall. Apart

from

that,

she

certainly

was not

typical

of the

young women

I had

seen

within

the

27

28

AUSTIN

COOPER

confines

of

prisons. There

was a

freshness

about

her

appearance

and a

polish

about

her

manner that

set her

apart

from

other inmates

I had

met.

As

we sat at the

table provided

for us and

discussed

her

pending appli-

cation

for

bail,

I

noticed

that

she was

clear eyed, reserved, polite, considerate,

and, above all, apparently quite

sane-at

least

to my

non-medical eye.

Later,

while interviewing

the

witnesses

to be

called

at her

application

for

bail

before

Mr.

Justice Steele,

I was

impressed

by the

quality

of her

friends.

Her

best

friend

and

confidante with whom

she

shared

an

apartment

was

Alison Woodbury,

a law

student

and a

person whose wholesome manner

and

integrity

were

immediately

apparent.

She is now a

lawyer

with

a

large firm.

The

evidence

she

gave

at the

bail hearing

was

impressive

and it

reinforced

my

initial reaction

to

this case:

it was

highly unlikely that

the

strange person

I

expected

to

have committed such senseless

and

bizarre crimes would have

friendships

with people

of

Alison Woodbury's quality.

If

one

assumed that

the

person

who had

committed these unusual

crimes

had to be an

aberrant

personality-a

twisted, warped

individual-the

staff

in our

office

quickly concluded that Susan Nelles

did not

appear

to fit the

role.

For

that reason alone (and, later, there were others),

we

began

to

specu-

late

that perhaps

the

police

had

arrested

the

wrong person.

To

test

our

thesis,

we

decided

to

have

her

examined

by a

psychiatrist

of

some eminence

and by a

senior psychologist

on the

staff

of a

major hospital.

We

wanted professionals whose qualifications, expertise,

and

impartiality

would

be

unquestioned,

so we

turned

to a

psychiatrist

and a

psychologist

who, although perhaps

not

well known around

the

courts, were

the

chiefs

of

their departments

at

teaching hospitals

in

Toronto.

The

chosen psychologist

was

Dr.

Leonard Goldsmith

at the

Toronto General Hospital.

He

adminis-

tered

a

battery

of

psychological tests

to Ms.

Nelles

and

gave

us a

written

report

that

concluded

she was the

most well-adjusted person

it had

ever been

his

privilege

to

examine.

We

felt

good about

that.

We

also arranged

to

have

her

examined

by Dr.

Stanley Greben,

who was

chief

of the

medical

staff

and

head

of the

Department

of

Psychiatry

at

Mount

Sinai

Hospital,

in

Toronto,

a

former

president

of the

Canadian Psychiatric

Association,

and a

professor

of

psychiatry

at the

University

of

Toronto.

He

had an

impressive background

of

scholarship

and

experience

and had

written

extensively

in his

specialty.

In his

written report,

Dr.

Greben concluded that

Susan

Nelles

was

sane, socially well adjusted,

and a

person

to

whom

the